Alpha Love

When I was pregnant I found a website called Alpha Mom that was amazing!  There is a pregnancy calendar that takes you week by week to see how your little one is progressing.  This was my first, so I was entranced.  I wouldn’t really read ahead; I wanted to be surprised and would look forward to reading a new post every week.

Well now that my baby is 3 months old, I have found another Alpha site!  The Alpha Parent! (I do not think they are related, however I could be wrong.) I am nursing, which, if you have tried it, is pretty grueling.  It’s a whole lifestyle change and takes a complete commitment.  Sometimes it gets hard, but I am doing it for my daughter’s benefit, as well as mine.  She has a timeline that chronicles the benefit and stats of nursing.  You can find it here.  If you are nursing or know anyone who is, I highly recommend this.  It gives you an extra push and makes you feel like you are doing the right thing, no matter how hard it can be.

Thanks to all the Alphas out there!

Weekend Warriors

R.I.S.K.

R.I.S.K.

Really Interesting Safety Kill

Ok, I’m not a fan of the negative connotation, but you get the gist.  A risk is a way to throw aside the safety net of the known and to sail into uncharted territory.  Some see risks as a threat, intimidating and scary.  Others, myself included, see risk as necessary, as exciting and full of adventure!

I was reading a blog post the other day called The Agony of Making Decisions.  In it, the author explained that she was homesick for her country and friends after relocating to the US.  What was very interesting to me was the tone she used in her sentiment.  Instead of focusing on what she didn’t like about her new circumstances, she instead told her readers of the happy and positive points.

It made me start thinking about decisions, and risks overall.  She moved to a different country.  I once moved across the United States.  Recently I quit a lucrative career to return to school and get my diploma, becoming pregnant and delivering my Bumble two days after I finished.  Now I am pursuing a job in a completely different field than I have ever worked in professionally.  I guess I like risks.

While I cannot change that aspect about myself, and I would not want to, I do hope to pass it on to my children.  With my husband being less risk-oriented, I feel confident that our Bumble and any future little ones will have a healthy balance of the behavior.  (That is the hope anyway!)

Futurama

I was reading The Rookie Mom’s Handbook and saw an activity about creating a time capsule for your baby.  It got me wondering, what would I include in mine?  And also, what would the world look like in 18 + years for her?

I could include current newspapers, movies, music, technology, and things that are “trending”.  This would include the crisis overseas, iPads and iPhones, music by musicians like Pharrell, maybe a mustache ring or something.  All this stuff is relevant today, and if she ever opened it around me it probably would take me back.

But maybe we’re doing the time capsule thing wrong.

Why would I include an iPad or iPhone when I agree with my husband when he says they are too proprietary and won’t give in to them?  Why would I include world news when she could easily look it up herself?  Why include something that isn’t fun for her to look at or explore?  Why include any of this stuff if it is not a reflection of me, of my husband, of her, at this point in time?

So for the time capsule I would create for my little bambino, these are the things I would include:

• A bottle of my husband’s beer.  Preferably the Ale he first brewed for the baby shower.
• An Android phone along with all of our favorite apps.  I’d put in games like Sudoku and Logic Games, along with picture sharing apps like Instagram.  My husband would put in guitar apps, homebrew apps, radars and maps, and Shazam.  We both would include lots and lots of music.
• Which is fitting for another point.  My music would be Social Distortion, Taj Mahal, Gogol Bordello, Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, No Doubt, Tim McGraw, and Jimmy Buffett.  (Just to name a few.) My husband would include music like Hot Tuna, Grateful Dead, Townes Van Zandt, Bluegrass, Traffic, Roots Reggae, and Wu Tang.  Pretty much the type of music that isn’t hitting the Billboard Charts right now and would not be relevant to us.
• Something I sewed.  Maybe a pillow or a blanket or something.  This would be a fun discovery.  Maybe I’d make her something she could wear at 18.
• Pictures, of course.  Not on the phone, but possibly a scrapbook.
• A piece of mail.  This would most likely be a bill since we get nothing fun in the mail anymore.
• A recording of us talking to her.  (Would DVD’s be obsolete by then?)

What about you?  What would you include in a personal time capsule?

INFP x 2?

Have you heard of the MBTI?  It’s the Myers Briggs Type Indicator.  It’s the assessment, not test, that gives you your preference for different parts of personality.  The first is I vs E, or introversion vs extroversion.  This is followed by N or S, intuition or sensing.  Next comes F or T, feeling or thinking.  Finally, there’s P vs J, perception vs judging.

Many people take the titles literally or in a context that is misdirected.  For example, introverts and extroverts are evaluated as such by how one gathers their energy, not by how social they are.  Introverts gather energy alone, in their heads, thinking.  Extroverts like to be in groups, shouting out ideas until someone nails it.  Introverts can be in that group, but they’ll only participate once they have made up their minds what to say.  For more detailed information, check out http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/.

One thing I do want to stress here though is that the point is to have a balance of both sides.  So if you had the assessment taken, it would be ideal for you to be on the cusp of both.  That is the goal, not to be 100% one or the other.  However, I believe it is ok to like your type, as I feel very happy with mine.

My husband and I have one letter in common, the F.  I am an INFP, he is an ESFJ.  However, I am a very strong INFP, with strong preferences for the letters.  He is closer to ideal, in the middle.  It is easy to see how this plays out in our relationship, and we have used it before to work on differences.  Let me just tell you, it is so cool to see how that can work!

So now we have our Bumble!  I am so excited to see what she is going to be like!  The debate is still out on how people develop their personalities.  It is a combination of nature and nurture – so which comes from us, the parents?  If I had to guess/pick, I think she’ll be like me.  (It’s only fair since she shares an astrological sign with her father, right?)  The I or E is a hard one to say since she is so tiny and just starting to coo.  And although her father and I have different preferences, we both practice on or the other at different times in different situations.  I think she will, too.

I think she’ll be an N like her momma.  Intuition is not all hippie stuff, (but whatdoyaknow?, I believe in that, too!) it is a preference for interpreting the information you get instead of taking it as is.  This is seeing patterns, etc.  As a girl she might be more natural at this anyway, as it could be intrinsic to decoding others emotions, which women are stronger at than men.

The next letter could go either way, but I do believe she’ll be like both of us and have a preference for feeling.  I know that some people say your children sometimes are the complete opposite, but since we are raising her I think she will be raised to be a feeler.  This means she’ll take into account the people and feelings of a situation, instead of purely logic and reason.

Last, is P or J.  This one I’m not committed to predicting.  More J’s are managers and in power positions.  That would be nice for her.  But P’s have a special edge, I believe.  The J is the decider; they make a decision and stick with it no matter what.  The P, or perceive, gathers as much information as humanly possible.  And even after they’ve made a decision, if there is new information that can change their minds, it might.

So there you have it, I hope my little girl is an INFP, and sometimes and ENFP, and all the time growing to try and be an IENSFTPJ.

What is your type?  If you have children, do they follow your type or are they opposite?

Beauty and the Bumble

I’m taking a blogging course currently, and today’s topic is Absolute Beauty.  The prompt is as follows:

“We’ve all heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Do you agree? is all beauty contingent on a subjective point of view?”

Since I am juggling  this blogging course with my own personal blog, I am using the prompt for today’s inspiration.  This will be happening quite frequently throughout the class.  Just an advanced warning.

Beauty and the Bumble.  What does that mean?  Well by now I hope you’ve figured out that Bumbles are babies.  Bumble is my particular baby in this blog.  Since we are on the topic of subjective beauty, I thought I would approach it in accordance with this.

We all have an ideal of what our baby is going to look like.  We imagine the perfect little mini-me or mini-spouse or ideal adopted baby.  In the adoption cases, you may even be able to pick out your baby or child before the adoption takes place.  For other circumstances and for those having a surrogate or their own, this is not the case.

I, for example, thought my baby was going to be a boy.  By week 20 we were certain she was not.  I also pictured a blonde headed, brown eyed, well, mini-me!  In reality, Bumble is pretty much mini-spouse.  She has dark hair that turns into tight curls when wet.  (Mama rushes to brush them straight before they dry lest they look like a baby-fro!)  She has light blue eyes that are in no rush of changing color.  Her eyebrows are darkening, and she is loooong.  Those of you who know me know what I mean when I say she is the opposite.

I do, however, see my face shape.  I see my cheekbones.  I see my family nose.  In certain angles she is unmistakably from my mother’s side.

My mother in law commented just last night that she favors my husband.

Do we see our own families in our children?  Do we make it a point to look for these similarities?  Does it make us connect to them better to see them that way?  I have a feeling if there are studies done on this, they would all say yes.

Next time you are talking about a baby, listen to what people say.  How many times do you hear, oh so-and-so looks just like so-and-so!  He/she has his/her nose!  Mouth!  Chin!  You get the picture.

So what happens if you don’t see those similarities?  Are you less connected to your child?  Is it true that children are created in our own likeness? (And yes, I get the science behind it and the genetics; this is a more philosophical question.) It is shown that attractiveness aids in development because of the attention given to the individual.  Is this the first case of that?

I also wonder is that what makes us think an ugly baby is ugly?  For instance, since the baby bears no resemblance to us our our families, do we think the baby is ugly?

Either way, it’s all subjective.  Beauty is for sure in the eye of the beholder.  And when the beholder is a parent, there is no shortage of adoration.

Beer!

One thing I really missed when I was pregnant was beer.  Before I got pregnant, I had just started venturing outside of my Miller Lite box and into the delicious world of ales and pilsners.  I like my wine dry and oaky, I like my beer hoppy!  We had gone to a beer festival and I got to try some of the best hoppy IPAs and couldn’t wait to sample more.  What made it even better was that my husband brewed beer, so I would get to explore my palate even more.

Obviously when I got pregnant I had to give that up, and it was easy.  I had no resentment or problem.  I did miss the social aspect of it, and at first friends wondered why I wasn’t joining in on nights out.  The hubs brewed a special ale for the baby shower.  Everyone kept saying how great his beers were, and luckily he saved me some.

Then I started finding out about breastfeeding and I found out that I couldn’t have a celebratory glass of champagne in the hospital like my mom wanted to do.  The Bumble would be eating so frequently and alcohol passes so freely in your system that it was not feasible.  Oh well, I figured.  I can wait.

Well she is almost 3 months old now and going about 6 hours between feedings at night.  According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, alcohol is considered a safe consumable; with limitations of course.  Alcohol should not exceed one drink per day, and breastfeeding should wait until at least 2 hours after consumption to give the body time to get rid of the alcohol.  The pump and dump method is a farce; milk contains alcohol just as the blood does.  Pumping and dumping does nothing.

So last night I decided to take the plunge!  My husband bought me a Founder’s Pale Ale, and poured it for me after her last feeding of the night.  I drank it within an hour, along with water.  Bumble did not want to eat for another 4 hours, so I felt good about that.  Although I did worry in the morning, I kept remembering that it was one drink and I had continued to drink water all night long.

I decided that I will let myself have a beer on Friday and Saturday nights only right now.  This will give me something to look forward to and a chance to ease into it.  Also I just don’t have the urge to drink much.  It is nice to relax with a beer, but it’s even nicer to cuddle with my little baby.  🙂

If you are a mom, do you have an occasional drink?  If you aren’t a mom, do you think you would?  I’m interested to hear since this seems to be a hot topic!

Leapfrog

Bumble has been strong since birth.  She, like all babies, was able to lift her head to breathe.  I believe this is called the Moro reflex.  But as time went on, her head control and strength just kept growing.  At a month old, she could hold up her head for a good amount of time if she was leaning her body on yours.  On the floor she used her back to hold up her head as she built up her arm strength.

My husband and I are very happy that she asks for tummy time.  We will be cuddling or something and she will start kicking her legs and getting fidgety.  We learned very fast that this was her way of saying, let me try to crawl!  And try to crawl she does.  We put our hands against the soles of her feet and she pushes off.  She does her pushups, building up her upper body strength.  We also let her use her legs independently.

When she uses her legs by herself, they usually are in the air, kicking.  She is trying to make contact with the floor, but her body makes almost a C shape as she arches to lift her head up as well.  Last Friday, the 5th, she did it.  She made contact!

There were a lot of grunts.  There was more arching and kicking.  Then her foot made contact with the floor while kicking and pushing up on her arms.  Boom!  She moved forward – On Her Own.  What?  I ran and got my phone to take video.  She did it again!

This type of move is apparently called the Leapfrog.  Look it up if you don’t know.  I didn’t.  It is a type of crawl and my 2 month old did it! Today is the 11th and we finally got a repeat.  I didn’t get video this time, but a repeat is good news!  This means that it will hopefully become more frequent and lead to other things.  Other things that make us baby proof the whole house and chase her.  Bittersweet.  🙂